Fire with Fire

I’M PRACTICALLY SLEEPWALKING AS I SHUFFLE DOWN the hall to English class. I can hardly keep my eyes open. I stayed up super late to finish reading The Scarlet Letter for today’s discussion. I’m too shy to actually talk in class, but Mrs. Dockerty loves to randomly call on the quiet kids.

I should have been doing a few pages a night, but of course I left it to the last minute. It’s such a sad story, and I can’t say that I enjoyed it. It hit a little too close to home. The scars that Hester carried all through her life, the guilt and shame she felt even though it wasn’t her fault. And when she died at the end, I was in tears.

Needless to say, it was not a fun read.

I just haven’t felt like doing much of anything since I watched Reeve and Lillia together in the pool. I should be happy. This should be helping me move on.

Only it isn’t.

I walk through the classroom door. I’m the first one, which is odd, especially since my last class was on the other side of the high school and it feels like everyone is counting off the minutes until Thanksgiving break begins. Not even Mrs. Dockerty is here yet. She’s probably in the bathroom or something. I fall into my seat and lay my head on the desk and rest my eyes for a minute.

I wake up with a start, my cheek stuck to the cover of the paperback. I lift my head slowly, trying to figure out how long I’ve been out. The class is suddenly full; everyone is in their seats. But there’s no Mrs. Dockerty. Instead a man is sitting on her desk. I guess we have a sub. I quickly wipe my mouth and take out my paperback.

“What did you think about Bartleby’s decision never to leave the office? Did it make him sympathetic? Or were you frustrated?”

A bunch of hands fly up. I glance down at my copy. I don’t remember an office anywhere in The Scarlett Letter. Or a character named Bartleby. Maybe I didn’t read closely enough?

The sub calls on one of my classmates, who says, “I thought it was annoying. If you’re not happy working at a place, why would you stay?”

Another kid across the room says, “He’s unhappy, but he doesn’t know how to fix it. He’s paralyzed. He’s got nowhere else to turn. Life at the office is all he has going for him. Without it, he’s nothing.” This kid doesn’t even wait to be called on. Which is crazy. Mrs. Dockerty is very strict about not talking out of turn.

The substitute nods, pleased. He hops off his desk and gives a stack of papers to each row of desks. Once he’s up, I see something on his desk. It’s a brass name plate. It says MR. FRISSEL.

Oh my gosh, I’m in the wrong class.

I realize this as the papers are being passed to me. The boy sitting in front of me turns around.

It’s David Washington, the boy I kissed on Halloween night.

“David,” I say, before I can stop myself.

He doesn’t answer me.

Maybe because he doesn’t recognize me without my makeup and the wild hair?

No, it’s worse. He lifts himself up out of his seat and hands the papers to the girl sitting behind me, like I’m not even there.

I get up with a start. “I—I made a mistake,” I announce. I grab my things and run out the door. But not to the class I’m supposed to be in. For the life of me, I can’t even remember what that is. So I head straight home. It’s a half day anyway.

When I get there, I’m still upset, so much so that my hands are shaking as I set my bike against the side of our house. Only one light is on inside, over the kitchen sink. The rest of the rooms are dark, like the sky.

I hear a knock around the front of the house. I edge past the corner and see two of the ladies from the Jar Island Preservation Society, with phony smiles plastered on their faces. They’ve stopped by before, always unannounced. I already know Aunt Bette will not answer the door.

I was home the first few times they came. We stood together in the doorway as they recommended landscapers who could come help clean up one yard or passed the name of a handy-man who might replace the broken shingles in a way that would “maintain the original integrity” of the house.

Sure, our house isn’t in the best shape. Not when you compare it to the other homes on the block. This part of Jar Island has the oldest houses; almost half have been officially designated as landmarks. And some people take that designation super seriously, making sure that every detail is true to the period and that any renovations are done with special materials that would have been used at the time, like slate and cedar.

But old houses take a lot of upkeep, and that’s never been Aunt Bette’s forte. Mine either. The whole place could use a fresh coat of paint. One of the wooden front steps has rotted through. And yes, our yard catches all the dead brown leaves from our big oak, but I don’t see what the big deal is. The ground is covered in snow; everything will stay white until March.

Not to mention that all of this stuff . . . it’s not hurting anyone. And it’s none of their business even if they do want to make it a landmark. This is our house, part of the Zane family since Jar Island came to be. I watch the two ladies retreat slowly down the steps.

But like anything you don’t deal with, they keep coming back. We’re going to have to do something about them; otherwise they’ll just keep coming around.

I plan on saying exactly that to Aunt Bette as I walk through the back door. But I don’t, because she’s talking on the telephone.

“She’s upset all the time. I don’t think she knows. There’s no reasoning with her. I tried to tell her that she needs to not focus on this Reeve boy. I never told you this because she swore me to secrecy . . .” Aunt Bette pauses. “No. No, of course not. You don’t need to come. I’ve got it under control.”

Oh my God, she’s talking to my mother about Reeve. I run in the room and stand right in front of her and stare daggers. Aunt Bette’s eyes go wide. She’s surprised to see me at this time of day.

“Erica, I . . . I have to go.” And then she hangs up.

“I can’t believe you just did that. You promised me you’d keep that a secret!”

Aunt Bette falls into her seat and starts rubbing her temples. “What does it matter now?”

I completely resent how exasperated she’s acting, like my very presence is taxing. “Are you serious? I trusted you!” I say, curt. “And I come home to find you talking about me behind my back? How do you think that makes me feel?”

Aunt Bette shrugs. “I’ve stopped trying to guess how you feel, Mary. I’m staying out of it.”

I point at the phone. “That’s not staying out of it!” I am quivering with anger. “And now I’ll have to explain everything to them at Thanksgiving.”

“Your parents aren’t coming for Thanksgiving.”

“Why?”

She looks at me and says, “Your mom doesn’t have such happy memories of this place.” She says it with more than a hint of bite, which I guess I deserve, but it still catches me off guard.

“Call Mom back. Call her and tell her that everything’s okay, that they should come for Thanksgiving. Tell them I’m okay.”

Aunt Bette stands up. “Nothing would make her happier, Mary, than to know that her daughter is okay. But I’m afraid we both know that isn’t exactly true.”

After my thirteenth-birthday-party disaster, when the only kid from my class to show up was Reeve, my parents became very concerned. Concerned and smothering.

Dad had the idea to throw me another birthday party, as if the first one had never happened. This new party would be somewhere on the mainland. He had it in his mind that the ferry ride was too much to ask of people. He refused to believe that no one came because no one wanted to be associated with me. He casually suggested that we make it more mature, cooler for a group of budding teenagers. Either roller skating or bowling.

I told him no way.

Mom wanted to start riding the ferry with me, to and from school. She said it would be fun. She’d bring the newspaper with her, or a book. I wouldn’t even have to talk to her if I didn’t want to. We could sit quietly with each other and enjoy the scenery. I refused, of course. The ferry ride was my time with Reeve. It was the only time I was happy.

Around them I made an effort to not eat as much food at dinner, and they’d look so hurt when I’d tell them to please not give me so much pasta.

They were trying so hard it made me feel worse. I started shrinking into myself. I didn’t want to hang out with my parents or do fun stuff on the island on the weekends. I hated how hard they were trying to fix this for me. It couldn’t be fixed. Not by them. And I hated seeing them hurt. I wanted to shield them from the hurt. I could take it. But I didn’t want them to suffer.

The worst of it was when the two of them knocked on my bedroom door late one night. The semester had ended at Montessori. I’d brought home a crappy report card. I never got bad grades.

Dad sat on my bed; Mom leaned against my desk.

He said, “Do you have any interest in changing schools?”

Mom said, “You could go here in Middlebury. You wouldn’t have to do the ferry anymore; you could have a brand-new start.”

Vehemently, I shook my head from side to side. “I don’t want to change schools.”

Mom zoomed right along, fixing a bright smile on her face. “Or we can move. Your dad and I have always talked about going back to the city someday. Picture it, Sunday afternoons at the art museum, picnics at the park.”

I said it louder. “I don’t want to change schools!” Dad patted my leg. There were tears in his eyes. “We want you to be happy. That’s all we want.”

“And all I want is to stay at Montessori,” I said. With Reeve.

I fall on my bed and stare at the ceiling. Time and time again, I pick Reeve over everything and everyone else. And it’s always the wrong choice. It’s like my life is a broken record, and even though I can see it coming, I can’t seem to jump the scratch.